Sunday, August 31, 2008
Editorial: Invest in diversity at Virginia Tech
A five-year plan to improve race relations deserves support.
From the RoundTable blog
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Virginia Tech has few black students. It has been like that for a while.
Tech officials have some new ideas about how they can encourage more minority students to give the Blacksburg school another look, but pulling it off will require a serious commitment from the people who control the purse strings.
Though 20 percent of Virginians are black, enrollment at Tech languishes below 5 percent. A similar pattern emerges for Hispanics -- 6 percent of the state, but 3 percent on campus. Meanwhile, Asians buck that trend, enrolling above their percentage of the state population.
Some of the reluctance by minority students is unsurprising. Tech, after all, still has a dormitory named after a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
For an institution charged with serving the entire commonwealth regardless of race or ethnicity, the status quo is unacceptable. Indeed, the campus experience now is far less rich than it should be.
Tech officials recognize the problem, and recently released a five-year plan to make the campus more welcoming to minority students. They hope someday the university's student body will better reflect the commonwealth.
They propose to have Tech require all students take core classes that address issues of race and privilege, create a program to help professors better incorporate issues of race into their existing courses, and better support existing diversity programs and create new ones dedicated to Hispanic studies.
The plan offers a sound approach to improve the atmosphere on campus during the next few years.
The committee that came up with it figures all of the changes will cost $899,000 over five years. That money would pay for new faculty, additional support staff, and diversity and outreach programs.
It is a sizeable expense, but one the university must commit to now if the improvements are to take hold.
Tech, like the rest of the state's colleges and universities, faces stiff financial challenges. The state budget is coming up short, and higher education will no doubt bear fresh cuts. When that happens, some people will want to place diversity programs on the chopping block first. A five-year commitment now will ensure racial diversity outreach survives financial turmoil.
No school can change its reputation and its culture overnight. Tech has tried to improve its racial mix for years. Progress has been slow, but it has happened. Now it must commit to continuing the work.
